MIAMI (WSVN) - U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is making a public push to reopen schools amid the coronavirus pandemic, as school superintendents in South Florida say the safety of their students, teachers and staff remains their top priority.
Speaking on CNN Sunday, DeVos said it’s important that students don’t fall behind.
“The rule should be that kids go back to school this fall. They’ve been missing months of learning. Many of them are going to be so far behind. It will be difficult to catch up,” she said. “There is nothing in the data that would suggest that kids being back in school is dangerous to them.”
However, DeVos could not promise children won’t get sick.
Dr. Nicholas Namias, a critical care specialist at Jackson Memorial Hospital, said long stretches in classrooms are a potential headache when it comes to containing the coronavirus.
“It’s obviously going to increase the number of infections, because the children are children, and they’re in a classroom that is a closed air space,” he said. “They’re going to be sharing the same air, and one kid brings it from home because his father got it on the job, he had to work and gives it to another kid, who gives it to his grandmother, who then gives it to 10 other people.”
Miami-Dade Public Schools Superintendent Albert Carvalho and Broward Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie recently discussed the matter.
“We need this community, quite frankly, to take the restrictions, the social behaviors seriously to reduce the positivity rate, so that we as a community can transition to Phase 2 and be allowed to physically open schools,” Carvalho said in a video message.
“When schools reopen on August 19, Broward County Public Schools will provide a high-quality education to all of our children in a healthy and safe environment,” said Runcie.
Some of the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for schools to reopen include keeping desks placed six feet apart and the use of cloth face coverings.
“The CDC guidelines are just that, meant to be flexible and meant to be applied as appropriate for the situation,” said DeVos.
DeVos also focused on schools in Miami-Dade County.
“In Miami-Dade County they have a continuity of instruction plan that is robust. Granted, they have this plan, or they have been working on this plan, because they often experience hurricane damage.”
Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber on Sunday echoed the superintendents’ calls to put safety first.
“We’re not going to — because someone wants it to look like we’re doing fine — going to put people in danger, and that’s what’s going on,” he said, “so they’re trying to come up with different plans, but we’re not going to follow some mandate from the president or even from the governor that says everything has to be open.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, said the White House is messing with children’s safety.
“I think what we’ve heard from the secretary was malfeasance and dereliction of duty,” she said.
President Donald Trump has threatened to cut federal funding to schools if they don’t fully physically reopen to increase pressure on leaders to get students back in classrooms.
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